3 ms·

Good to hear that about the second point. Here in the Netherlands it’s just one broadband provider per location, and I’ve heard similar stories from people in w

Good to hear that about the second point. Here in the Netherlands it’s just one broadband provider per location, and I’ve heard similar stories from people in west Germany. So it’s good to know that it’s different for everywhere else.

Aaargh20318 7y ago
> Here in the Netherlands it’s just one broadband provider per location No it isn't. I live in the Netherlands and I can choose from 13 different ISP's on fiber alone. Add to that cable (Ziggo) and another dozen or so ISP's on DSL. Not sure where you live in NL but in most places there is a LOT of choice. Even my parents who live in the middle of nowhere have several options including cable and fiber.
- milankragujevic 7y ago
  Counter point, though not for Netherlands. I'm a big "ISP enthusiast", so it pains me to see that in my home country, Serbia, Telekom Srbija owns EVERY SINGLE phone line in the country, so any and all DSL goes through them. You can buy DSL from someone else, but it stills goes through their infrastructure, the "virtual" ISP just buys DSL access from Telekom. Not even actual line access, just routing. You still HAVE to pay for a LANDLINE to Telekom directly, which is 5€ per month. All other ISPs are either mobile broadband, WISP, or one single CDMA ISP that offers 128/32 Kbps Internet. Cable ISPs have hidden non-compete contracts so if you have SBB (owned by United Group), you don't have Radijus Vektor, Kopernikus, Masko, etc., because of the non-compete. By the way, main 2 plays on fixed broadband access are Telekom Srbija (Supernova, which owns almost all cable providers that aren't owned by SBB, mts (for ADSL and fiber)) and United Group (SBB and Beogrid, and others via Cable). Orion Telekom does fiber in a few % of apartment buildings in Belgrade and Novi Sad, Exe Net in Niš and Leskovac, and that is basically it. DSL is mostly up to 10/1 Mbps, a number of lucky people have 20/4 Mbps (upload is usually cut back to 2 Mbps) with VDSL, and a really tiny percentage have 50/8 Mbps VDSL and an even smaller number of people have 100+ Mbps with FTTH. Mobile broadband is limited to up to 200 GB with Vip mobile, and that is a fixed wireless package which is limited to one location. Their speeds are terrible in most urban areas, and it's mostly 800 MHz with 15 MHz channel in rural areas. 4G+ is rare. WISP (Fixed wireless over 802.11n or ac standard) is apsolutely atrocious, as is everywhere else in the world, with speeds reaching up to 20 Mbps except on dedicated links, mostly 10/2 Mbps for most users. CDMA deserves no mention, being literally unusuable, and only marginally better than dial-up. Fiber is extremely rare. Speeds are good, the most affordable ISP is Orion Telekom, but if you want TV, their TV offer is very poor (slow and low quality rebranded wholesale Android STB with a really bad Wowza headend which is overloaded and has poor bitrate leading to abysmal picture quality). Given that Fiber is not available to most people, DSL being slow and unreliable (up to 10 Mbps), CDMA useless, mobile broadband expensive and limited (often not available due to overloading of cell towers), the only actual posibility for (good) Internet for most people is Cable. And that is a shared medium that is oversold and bundled with CATV.
  - Aaargh20318 7y ago
    Here the fiber is also owned by a big telco, but my ISP just rents the fiber. The equipment on both sides of the fiber is owned by my ISP. That's how they can offer gbit speed (and in some locations 10Gbit) while the big telco doesn't offer anything above 500Mbit.
t0mas88 7y ago
That's very rare in the Netherlands, because phone and fiber network owners are both forced to let many others on their network. And in at least 2/3rd of the country you can also choose cable instead of DSL.
tluyben2 7y ago
Where in NL? Because I am in a small village and there are multiple options even there. Even in the tiny village in Spain I live part of the year we have multiple choices. Although for both countries I now just use mobile data. Depends on your usage, but for me (dev, netflix, youtube) it is more than enough. I have an unlimited EU package stuck on a SIM which I put in a Glocalme. Works well.
anoncake 7y ago
> west Germany Unless you mean western Germany I recommend you pay more attention to the news.

Aaargh20318 7y ago

> Here in the Netherlands it’s just one broadband provider per location No it isn't. I live in the Netherlands and I can choose from 13 different ISP's on fiber alone. Add to that cable (Ziggo) and another dozen or so ISP's on DSL. Not sure where you live in NL but in most places there is a LOT of choice. Even my parents who live in the middle of nowhere have several options including cable and fiber.

milankragujevic 7y ago
Counter point, though not for Netherlands. I'm a big "ISP enthusiast", so it pains me to see that in my home country, Serbia, Telekom Srbija owns EVERY SINGLE phone line in the country, so any and all DSL goes through them. You can buy DSL from someone else, but it stills goes through their infrastructure, the "virtual" ISP just buys DSL access from Telekom. Not even actual line access, just routing. You still HAVE to pay for a LANDLINE to Telekom directly, which is 5€ per month. All other ISPs are either mobile broadband, WISP, or one single CDMA ISP that offers 128/32 Kbps Internet. Cable ISPs have hidden non-compete contracts so if you have SBB (owned by United Group), you don't have Radijus Vektor, Kopernikus, Masko, etc., because of the non-compete. By the way, main 2 plays on fixed broadband access are Telekom Srbija (Supernova, which owns almost all cable providers that aren't owned by SBB, mts (for ADSL and fiber)) and United Group (SBB and Beogrid, and others via Cable). Orion Telekom does fiber in a few % of apartment buildings in Belgrade and Novi Sad, Exe Net in Niš and Leskovac, and that is basically it. DSL is mostly up to 10/1 Mbps, a number of lucky people have 20/4 Mbps (upload is usually cut back to 2 Mbps) with VDSL, and a really tiny percentage have 50/8 Mbps VDSL and an even smaller number of people have 100+ Mbps with FTTH. Mobile broadband is limited to up to 200 GB with Vip mobile, and that is a fixed wireless package which is limited to one location. Their speeds are terrible in most urban areas, and it's mostly 800 MHz with 15 MHz channel in rural areas. 4G+ is rare. WISP (Fixed wireless over 802.11n or ac standard) is apsolutely atrocious, as is everywhere else in the world, with speeds reaching up to 20 Mbps except on dedicated links, mostly 10/2 Mbps for most users. CDMA deserves no mention, being literally unusuable, and only marginally better than dial-up. Fiber is extremely rare. Speeds are good, the most affordable ISP is Orion Telekom, but if you want TV, their TV offer is very poor (slow and low quality rebranded wholesale Android STB with a really bad Wowza headend which is overloaded and has poor bitrate leading to abysmal picture quality). Given that Fiber is not available to most people, DSL being slow and unreliable (up to 10 Mbps), CDMA useless, mobile broadband expensive and limited (often not available due to overloading of cell towers), the only actual posibility for (good) Internet for most people is Cable. And that is a shared medium that is oversold and bundled with CATV.
- Aaargh20318 7y ago
  Here the fiber is also owned by a big telco, but my ISP just rents the fiber. The equipment on both sides of the fiber is owned by my ISP. That's how they can offer gbit speed (and in some locations 10Gbit) while the big telco doesn't offer anything above 500Mbit.

t0mas88 7y ago

That's very rare in the Netherlands, because phone and fiber network owners are both forced to let many others on their network. And in at least 2/3rd of the country you can also choose cable instead of DSL.

tluyben2 7y ago

Where in NL? Because I am in a small village and there are multiple options even there. Even in the tiny village in Spain I live part of the year we have multiple choices. Although for both countries I now just use mobile data. Depends on your usage, but for me (dev, netflix, youtube) it is more than enough. I have an unlimited EU package stuck on a SIM which I put in a Glocalme. Works well.

anoncake 7y ago

> west Germany Unless you mean western Germany I recommend you pay more attention to the news.